“Oh my God.” Demeter grabs the paper from him. “I never even noticed that.”
“There are lots of possible explanations,” begins Alex. “It could be…I don’t know. An IT-department experiment. Or maybe you started a new email account yourself and forgot—”
“Me, start an email account?” retorts Demeter derisively. “Are you joking? I wouldn’t know where to start! Sarah does all that stuff. She organizes my emails, she forwards things, she’s the only one who ever—” Demeter breaks off and we meet eyes. And I feel a huge lurch.
Sarah.
It’s like a curtain has fallen down. I can suddenly see. Sarah. Oh my God.
Demeter’s face has turned ashen. I can see her mind is turning over this idea as quickly as I am. Sarah. Sarah.
It all makes sense. Emails changing…messages disappearing…Sarah and her hostile, exaggerated patience…Demeter standing in the office, peering at her phone as though she thinks she’s going mad…
“Sarah?” I say at last.
“Sarah,” echoes Demeter, looking a bit ill. “Oh God.”
“What?” Alex is looking from Demeter to me and back again. “Who’s Sarah?”
Demeter seems speechless. So I draw breath, trying to organize my racing thoughts.
“She’s Demeter’s PA. You know, with the ponytail? She basically runs Demeter’s life. She writes emails in Demeter’s voice; she is Demeter, often. And she’s always forwarding Demeter’s emails back to her when they get deleted. So she could easily…well…” I breathe out. “Fake one.”
“Why?” Alex looks bewildered. “Why would anyone do that?”
Again, Demeter and I exchange looks. It’s hard to convey an office atmosphere to someone who hasn’t lived in it forty hours a week.
“To screw with me,” says Demeter, her voice bleak. “At least, I would imagine.”
“Again—why?”
“My relationship with her hasn’t been…perfect.” Demeter is wringing her thin hands.
“She’s never forgiven you for making her boyfriend redundant,” I venture. “She wrote me this whole letter about it. She sounded pretty bitter. And if she’s been holding that against you all this time, if she wanted to get revenge—”
“OK, let’s stop right here.” Alex interrupts, looking alarmed. “These are very serious accusations—”
“Think about it, Demeter,” I continue, ignoring Alex. “She ran your in-box. She could enable different accounts. Control which emails you saw and didn’t see, write replies in your name, send things and delete them—I mean, she could conduct an entire fake correspondence if she wanted to.”
I’m recalling how Sarah would boast about how many emails she used to send out in Demeter’s voice. “I’ve been Demeter all afternoon,” she used to say, in that long-suffering way. And who checked them? I bet Demeter never did.
“Enough!” snaps Alex. “There’s no evidence for this.”
“This is evidence!” Demeter shakes the page at him. “This is! It doesn’t make any sense! And there were other emails like this; I saw them.”
“But you say you replied to them too,” objects Alex.
“Yes.” Demeter’s face falls. “I did.” She puts her fingers to her brow, looking desperate. “Oh God, nothing makes sense—”
“Did you ever check the email address you were replying to?” I ask. “Lindsay’s address?”
“What?” Demeter stares at me. “Of course not. It just popped up in my email contacts.”
“Well, then.” I shrug. “I’m guessing your replies never made it to Lindsay. And we can prove it,” I add in sudden inspiration. “Ask Lindsay if she ever sent Demeter this email.” I gesture at the paper. “And if she says she didn’t—”
“Contact Allersons?” echoes Alex incredulously. “Allersons never want to speak to any of us again!”
“Then commandeer Sarah’s computer. They can trace all this stuff….”
“Are you mad?” He glares at me. “Do you know what a state our staff morale is in right now? You think I’m going to go blundering in with these fantasyland tales? Demeter, you’re an old friend and I respect you very deeply, but this is over. Over.”
“You’re not still getting rid of Demeter?” I say in disbelief. “Not after this?”
“There is no ‘this’!” he explodes. “Demeter, when you said ‘evidence,’ I thought you meant evidence. Something solid. Not one email and a far-fetched theory. I’m sorry. You’ve had your chance, but now it’s the end of the line.”
And the way he says it, my heart starts to thud.
“Alex, leave it till tomorrow,” says Demeter, sounding desperate. “Sleep on it.”
“I have people on my back. I need to get this done.” He rubs his face, looking thoroughly miserable. “So if you’re really refusing to come to the meeting room, refusing to do this properly—”
“Stop!” My voice rockets up in panic. “Stop! Don’t fire!”
“You’re fired.” Alex’s voice is like a bullet. “End of.”
“You can’t do that!” I cry, outraged. “Un-fire her!”
But Alex is already stalking out of the yard, back toward the yurt village. The fire is still in full blaze, and some of the glampers are singing along to a guitar. Steve Logan has joined the throng, and I can see him swaying along to “Brown Eyed Girl.”